GUYHIRN: Little Chef set to become Cambridgeshire's biggest sex shop as councillor quits in protest

12:07 09 May 2008

Paul Carpenter quit in protest from parish council

CAFÉ entrepreneur Tony Ibrahim has bought the Little Chef at Guyhirn and plans to turns it into Cambridgeshire’s biggest sex shop. He has spent months acquiring the freehold after discovering no one else was interested in the derelict building

CAFÉ entrepreneur Tony Ibrahim has bought the Little Chef at Guyhirn and plans to turns it into Cambridgeshire’s biggest sex shop.

He has spent months acquiring the freehold after discovering no one else was interested in the derelict building which had been ransacked by vandals and copper piping stripped from the roof.

Mr Ibrahim has previous experience of running a sex shop since until two years ago he ran a small adult only shop at the rear of a service station at Thorney Toll.

“To be honest we ran an adult shop for three years and never had one single problem,” he told the Standard. “We had more problems with people driving off without paying for their petrol, smashing canopies or breaking in at nights.

“The huff and puff over our adult shop at Thorney was one person in the village- who ended up being our best customer anyway!” He hopes to open within a month and the sex shop will cover both ground and first floors.

However his purchase of the A47 site has prompted the resignation of a parish councillor who said he quit after failing to persuade fellow councillors to join his protest.

Paul Carpenter says he has had enough after a year serving as a member of Wisbech St Mary Parish Council.

Fearing Guyhirn will be known as “the sex capital of Fenland” he has enlisted the help of an action group to stop the shop going ahead.

Mr Ibrahim is unrepentant and said he and his family had lived locally for 40 years “and we don’t break the law, and we work very closely with Government bodies and local authorities.

“We want it to be right. Our biggest issue is that we know people who live in the Wisbech area who want something specific will travel to Kings Lynn or Peterborough for it. In effect they are going out of their own area and giving the business to someone else.”

Mr Ibrahim said Fenland Council’s attitude to business was changing, and he applauded their support for local enterprise.

“Why shouldn’t people spend their money on what they want locally,” said Mr Ibrahim.

Mr Carpenter, meanwhile, says he will use the Guyhirn Action Group, of which he is chairman, to protest against the new business.

He said other parish councillors seemed “disinterested and this attitude of the parish councillors and their general lack of action caused me to conclude that I was wasting my time at the council and in frustration I resigned a week later.”

Councillor Brian Hardy said it was “nice to see the former Little Chef being re-developed. It’s been a bit of an eyesore”

What do you think of Mr Ibrahim’s plans? Email the editor, john.elworthy@archant.co.uk